Pressure on local press to axe sex ads

Pressure is growing to outlaw advertising of sex services in the local press, it was claimed in one of the sessions at the JEE Camp 09 "unconference" in Birmingham last week.
Newsquest's Croydon Guardian ran a story Councils urged to back anti-sex ads campaign last month highlighting the issue.
The Croydon Guardian notes that Newsquest banned all adult advertisements in July 2008, having been persuaded of the link between the ads and women being trafficked for sex. However, it pointed out that other local titles such as the Croydon Advertiser and the Croydon Post continue to run the adverts.
The Croydon Guardian said local councils were being asked by campaign group Eaves Housing, a charity that looks after women trafficked into the sex trade, to put pressure on newspaper publishers to stop carrying sex ads.
It quoted Denise Marshall, Eaves chief executive, as saying: “In London’s local papers 80 per cent of ads for adult massage parlours or saunas are fronts for brothels, where men can buy sex.
“Newspaper owners turn a blind eye to this, insisting that they do not advertise anything illegal, while banking their gains from the sex industry... The irony is that local papers are full of articles about the problems caused by or related to prostitution – the blight of kerb-crawling on local neighbourhoods, the increase in drug crime – but they are directly contributing to the problem by advertising brothels."
The Croydon Guardian also reported that Lambeth council was supporting the campaign and was in talks with Sir Ray Tindle's South London Press about the issue.
Martin Belam on Currybetdotnet notes the amount of sex advertising in his local paper in Muswell Hill.
He says: "One of the conundrums of the local press is the editorial disconnect between the message and the advertising. One of the biggest local issues in my area over the last couple of months has been plans for a lap-dancing club to be licensed in a residential area near a school.
"Residents have been campaigning against it, and the local press have been backing them. Whilst at the same time taking the money for pages of illustrated classified ads for local 'massage' services."